Re: OT: Opinions wanted: person of vocatives

From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
> I'm working on paternosters in my two conlangs, and I have
> a question about the first line (wow, I've gotten far!).
>
> The older English form is "Our father, which art in heaven";
> the verb "art" is conjugated in the second person singular because "which"
> refers to "father", which is in the vocative; it's the person being
> addressed, and therefore considered second person.
>
> In modern English it's "Our father, who is in heaven".  The relative
> pronoun is considered third person because "father" - and indeed, all
> nouns - can only be third person in modern English.  Only the pronouns can
> be first or second person, though that can include relative pronouns when
> the antecedent is a personal pronoun: "I who am honored to be here";
> "You who are my friend", etc.
So the modern English would be "Our father, you who are in heaven"... especially
to keep with prayers, which are generally 2nd person addresses anyway.

[It's still not a very English thing to _say,_ though...]

> So now I have a decision to make with my conlangs, which boils down to
> this: are vocative nouns considered to be second or third person?
In Kirumb what vocatives may happen to remain (it's not as a paradigm, but I'm
sure some might, like maybe family terms or borrowed words like _kurie_) are
always a clause to themselves, and dont have any part in the sentence.  (They do
this in English, too:  if I say "John, you just stepped on my foot" or "John,
the tenor is strangling the soprano" it doesnt do anything to the sentence if
the direct address word is removed.

    *Muke!
--
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